Hmm.. I think that I should think about this before posting, since it's troublingly difficult. At any rate, here's my thought.

You are right to translate this as saying that the stock market rebound in the necessary condition for economic recovery.

To my mind, the negation would be that the rebound is NOT a necessary condition for economic recovery. That is to say that economic recovery is possible with or without the rebound.

For this reason, I think the bible is wrong (as books can be). It is not that "the economy will recover this year even if the stock market does not rebound." I believe that it is instead that the economy CAN recover regardless of whether the stock market rebounds.

Two notes here: the "regardless of whether" is equivalent to "even if," just clearer for me. The first part is what's different. The negation does not mean a recovery is assured, just possible without the necessary precondition of the original statement.

Herein lies the rub. A conditional is a statement of a neccesary requirement. Negating a conditional means denying the necessity of a presumed necessary condition.

Ex.

In order to go to law school, it is neccesary that one take the LSAT. (LS -> LSAT)

Negated:

The LSAT is not a necessary condition for law school

OR

One can go to law school regardless of whether she has taken the LSAT ("even if she hasn't").

I should say that my analysis is in part based on truth tables. The one thing that makes a conditional A->B false is if B is false while A is true. For example, if I said, "All cats smell like gouda," the only way to prove me wrong is to find a cat (A) that did not smell like gouda (~B). So the negation of a conditional is a negation of the necessity of a condition.

Don't forget you have to remember to negate BOTH the sufficient and the necessary part of the statements along with transposing 'unless' to 'even if'. Which means if you have a negative statement(s), it becomes positive. Are you confused yet?

page 270-271, #9 - for those that want to play along.

"Unless the stock market rebounds, the economy will not recover this year."

Negate Sufficient: The economy WILL recover this year...Change UNLESS to EVEN IF: ...even if...Negate Necessary: ...the stock market DOES NOT rebound

Finished Negation:"The economy WILL recover this year EVEN IF the stock market DOES NOT rebound."

Oh and bass, kudos to you for the brainwork, but you are way overthinking it. Formulate simple rules (they are buried in the text and examples) and apply as needed.

pocketaces

hey liz, the testmasters discussion about "unless" and "even if" is pretty useful. i wish powerscore had included that (unburied) in their LR bible. curious to know what other differences there are. i always thought that TM and PS were more or less the same.

I know this post was made some years ago, but the correct answer in the LR Bible, 2013 edition, does not contain the expression "even if." In my version, p. 271, #9, of the Bible, the correct answer is "If the economy recovers this year, then the stock market will not rebound," which negates the necessary condition. I'm not clear on where the "even if" expression comes from. Perhaps it was included in a different edition.

I'd just keep it simpler. If you want to negate something put a big NOT in front of it and be done. I.e. If that thing is green then it must be a frog turns into: it is NOT true that if that thing is green then it must be a frog.